Epstein friendship, a rape trial and a controversial shaman: The chaos engulfing the Norwegian royal family

The Windsors are not the only royal family engulfed in scandal following the release of the latest tranche of documents from the Epstein files. Across the North Sea, the Norwegian royal house is facing a reputational crisis of its own.

While cosy emails allegedly sent from Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York and ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, to the convicted sex offender and financier have dominated headlines in the United Kingdom, the files appear to paint a similarly close friendship between Epstein and Crown Princess Mette-Marit, the wife of Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the throne of Norway.

And just a few hours after the latest batch of Epstein emails were unveiled by the US Department of Justice, Mette-Marit, who is thought to have exchanged more than 100 messages with the deceased paedophile, was dragged into yet more controversy, when her eldest son Marius Borg Høiby was arrested on suspicion of assault – on the eve of his trial on four charges of rape, and 34 further alleged offences.

Norway’s low-key royals have tended to enjoy strong support from their people; their 88-year-old king, Harald V, Europe’s oldest monarch, is particularly popular, a grandfatherly figure who has been hailed for his down-to-earth persona. But this double blow will surely have major repercussions for the family’s image, in a society that has come to expect transparency and honesty from its leaders.

While 52-year-old Mette-Marit’s journey into Norwegian royalty was not entirely straightforward. In the run up to her marriage to Prince Haakon, she was painted in the press as something of a party girl who’d embraced the country’s rave scene.

The fact that she and Haakon had been sharing a flat for a year with Marius, her four-year-old son from a previous relationship, attracted censure from the Church of Norway. Just days before their 2001 wedding, she gave a tearful address to the public, in which she admitted to “living quite a wild life” and said that she “condemn[s] drugs”.

The newly-revealed strength of her apparent bond with Epstein, though, vastly eclipses this past pearl-clutching. The princess, it seems, was in regular contact with the financier, who cultivated a sprawling social circle of the wealthy and powerful, between 2011 and 2013, several years after Epstein served a jail sentence for procuring a girl under the age of 18 for prostitution.

Their correspondence is certainly warm, trading book recommendations as well as details of holiday plans and social events. The royal describes her “crazy friend” Epstein as “such a sweetheart” and claims that he “tickle[s] her brain”; elsewhere, the pair seem to joke about Epstein going “wife hunting”, with the princess suggesting that Paris is “good for adultery” but “Scandis [are] better wife material”. And in one message, she asks him whether it is “inappropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my 15 yr old son’s wallpaper?”

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Soon after the release of the files, Mette-Marit, who has chronic pulmonary fibrosis and will likely need a lung transplant, put out a statement admitting that she “showed poor judgement” and “deeply regret[ted] having had any contact with Epstein”, describing the connection as “simply embarrassing”. She took responsibility, she said, “for not having checked Epstein’s background more closely and not understanding quickly enough what kind of person he was”, and shared her “deep sympathy and solidarity” with his victims.

Her words, however, may not be enough to paper over deepening cracks. Shaking off any traditional deference to the royals, Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Store released a brief but quietly damning statement of his own. “I understand why many people have reacted strongly to the revelations in the documents,” he said. “I have too. Crown Princess Mette-Marit has herself acknowledged that she has exercised poor judgement, and I agree with her.” A comment piece in Aftenposten, one of Norway’s biggest newspapers, asked: “Can Mette-Marit become queen after this?”

The allegations faced by her eldest son, born four years before Mette-Marit married the crown prince, and although he is seen as a close member of the family. 29-year-old Høiby, whose father is party scene fixture turned businessman Morten Borg, is the stepson of the future king, but is not a public figure.

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He was brought up in the palace with two royal half-siblings, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Crown Prince Sverre Magnus, but with no title or official status himself.

He is now on trial facing an array of 38 charges including rape with sexual intercourse while a woman was unconscious in October 2023, three counts of rape by sexual assault on incapacitated women – considered rape in Norway – in December 2018, March 2024 and November 2024, six counts of sexually offensive conduct without consent – including filming of victims, causing bodily harm, repeatedly abusing a current or ex-partner through threats, coercion or violence, violating a restraining order against him, transporting 3.5kg of marijuana and speeding.

The trial started in Oslo on Tuesday (3 February) and is set to be one of the biggest – and most closely-watched – in Norway’s recent history, slated to last for around seven weeks.

Høiby has pleaded not guilty to rape, filming women without their consent or knowledge and abuse in close relationships; he did, however, plead guilty to some charges including violating a restraining order, driving offences and a drug offence.

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Lead prosecutor Sturla Henriksbø spoke in court that Høiby’s status should not come to bear on how he is treated. “The defendant is the son of the crown princess,” he said. “He is part of the royal family. He should still be treated equally like any other person charged with the same offences. He should not be treated more severely or more leniently because of those with whom he is related.” If Høiby is found guilty, he could face more than a decade in prison.

The firestorm surrounding Mette-Marit and her son has taken some of the heat off another royal row: the high-profile relationship between her sister-in-law, Princess Martha Louise, and Durek Verrett, a self-proclaimed shaman from San Francisco who has also claimed to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharaoh.

Among Verrett’s bizarre theories is his suggestion that unhappiness can cause cancer in children, and that casual sex “attracts underworld entities”. After they married in 2024, their decision to let Netflix film the ceremony for a documentary caused outcry among the Norwegian public.

What will the cumulative effect of all these scandals prove to be? It seems inevitable that the family’s once-healthy approval ratings may take something of a nose-dive; indeed, the republican association Norge som republikk has reported that its membership has more than tripled over the past two years. Even those who previously saw the royals as “a relatively harmless bunch” are “now reconsidering their position” thanks to the “ongoing omniscandal”, the group’s leader Craig Aaen-Stockdale recently told The Guardian.

As Høiby’s trial gets underway, the royals will not be in attendance at court, but their absence surely won’t shield them from yet more scrutiny. When Mette-Marit joined the royal family, she was hailed as something of a Cinderella figure. Now, though, the fairytale appears to have lost its magic entirely.